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Introducing: Joanne Lancaster Skateboard Park in Wiarton

Joanne Lancaster (left), chair of the Wiarton skateboard park committee, joined Janice Jackson, Mayor of South Bruce Peninsula, to break ground at the site of the newly-dubbed Joanne Lancaster Skateboard Park at Bluewater Park in Wiarton, Nov. 14. Photo by Zoe Kessler/Wiarton Echo

Joanne Lancaster burst into tears when the sign was revealed at Wiarton's newly-named Joanne Lancaster Skateboard Park in Wiarton, Nov. 14.
“I’ve never been so surprised in my life,” she said, calling it "amazing" and "shocking."
Lancaster was joined by members of council and staff for the Town of South Bruce Peninsula, representatives from various service clubs, media, friends and supporters at the groundbreaking ceremony in Bluewater Park.
The Wiarton resident has worked tirelessly for the past five years to spearhead fundraising for the park. As chair of the Wiarton skateboard park committee, she has lobbied the Town of South Bruce Peninsula for support, held public meetings seeking input from community stakeholders, created and participated in many fundraisers and sought contributions from businesses, local service clubs, and elsewhere in an effort to raise funds and in-kind donations for the facility’s design and build.
After Andrew Sprunt, manager of public works and Gord Glover, facilities co-ordinator for the town, unveiled the sign, Lancaster joined the town’s Mayor Janice Jackson, holding the shovel used to turn the earth to break ground at the site.
“I think kids need something,” Lancaster said. “They have all this energy and they need someplace to put it. I’m really, really pleased.”
Lancaster said many things – including council – had changed over the years since she began her crusade for a skateboard park.
“But in my head I knew that we needed something. Other places were getting them. I think kids are our future,” she said, noting many people had helped bring the project to this point.
“The town hall has been amazing; the Optimist Club, the Propeller Club, all the people who pitched in. The Legion ladies did a dinner. It’s just amazing what people will do in a community and I hope they keep continuing to help us until we finish.”
Lancaster said she hoped people would realize how close they are to completing the project.
If everybody pitches in, whether it’s through volunteer work from individuals or trades people or through donations, the project will get finished, she said.
“Maybe I’m getting too old to spearhead something else if it takes this long, but maybe it will show other people that it can be done in a little wee place like us.”
The budgeted amount for the park is $150,000, of which $100,000 cash has been raised.
“The Optimist Club is the single highest contributor to date with a $30,000 contribution,” Lancaster said.
Items such as lumber to build the forms and a percentage of the concrete are being donated, Gayle Hall, skateboard park committee member said in an email, Nov. 15.
Pledged donations are also outstanding, leaving the amount left to raise at approximately $25,000, Hall said.
“It’s absolutely remarkable for a community our size to come together like this and to put up so much money for this venture,” Mayor Jackson said at the groundbreaking, adding she has “no doubt at all” that the final amount would be raised.
“I’m just so impressed with Joanne. Her tenacity and never giving up and coming up with $100,000, it’s just remarkable. I’m incredibly proud of her and it really was an obvious choice to name the skatepark after her,” Jackson said.
The site is now being prepared for next year’s build, Sprunt said.
The groundwork and the concrete portion of the work will start next spring.
With as much energy as Lancaster has already expended on the project, she will have one final task once the park is officially opened.
“I hope I live up to all these kids that want to skateboard,” she said.
“Because I’m going to be the first one down it. They said they’d drop me in bubble wrap. I’ve got a helmet and a skateboard,” she added, laughing.